


erasing myself from the narrative (so stand back and watch it burn)

by AceMoppet



Series: burn out and turn over a new leaf [1]
Category: Much Ado About Nothing (2011), Much Ado About Nothing - Shakespeare
Genre: Angry Hero, Angst, Claudio done goofed, Gen, Hero deserved better gdi, Hurt No Comfort, Mentions of Claudio
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-31
Updated: 2019-07-31
Packaged: 2020-07-27 23:28:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 593
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20054290
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AceMoppet/pseuds/AceMoppet
Summary: “Dreams die,” Hero snaps, “and so too has my love.”Or, Hero learns that she is to marry Claudio, even after he shamed her.





	erasing myself from the narrative (so stand back and watch it burn)

**Author's Note:**

> I watched the Tennant and Tate version of "Much Ado About Nothing" yesterday (can I get a wahoo for them? They're?? So funny???), and while I'm completely enamored with Beatrice and Benedick, I'm still angry over how Hero was treated. I know she had to marry Claudio in order to restore her honor, but goddamn. Hero, you deserved better, and by God I will write it better.
> 
> This is going to be the first in a series where I explore and answer the question: what would happen if Hero married Claudio, but all the love was gone? There will be an eventual redemption arc for Claudio, because he done goofed, but I believe in him.
> 
> If you like this, please leave a comment or kudos! Thank you and enjoy!

“So I’m to marry him.”

The words are flat and dead, a graveyard of emotion in every syllable. Despite her elation that her cousin’s name has been cleared, Beatrice’s heart sinks.

“Cousin,” she says softly, gently placing a hand on her shoulder. “What runs through your mind?”

“Oh, surely ‘tis joy!” a new maid says from the side, scurrying about. “She and her love are reunited once more!”

“My love?” Hero asks. Something in Beatrice’s soul flinches at the chill in Hero’s tone. “I am afraid, dear Angela, that my love does not factor into this.”

The maid- Angela, ‘tis her name- is a poor fool, for she merrily goes on. “Oh surely it does!” she titters. “Come now, my lady, there’s no need to pretend; we all saw you with the Count. Walking in the gardens, talking at dinner… why, ‘twas almost like a dream!”

“Dreams die,” Hero snaps, “and so too has my love.”

Just a few hours earlier, Friar Francis had implored her uncle to not renounce his daughter, stating that Hero’d had a “fire” in her eyes that burned against “the errors” of the princes and the count. Beatrice sees no hint of that fire now.

“Hero,” she says again. “Cousin, what runs through your mind?”

Hero laughs, bitter and sad. “Only this, Cousin,” she says, looking up with cold, anguished eyes. “That though I am the one wrongfully shamed and I am the one wrongfully accused, I am the one punished while the Count, who did the crime, gets off guilt-free. In the eyes of the world, he’s lost nothing for stealing my honor, whereas I, for the rest of my life, will have to hear the whispers that he will no doubt turn a deaf ear to.”

Beatrice wants to tell her she’s wrong, that the gossip will stop after her wedding, but she knows better than to think the best of all the snakes that circle Messina. They may not have fangs with which to inflict their poison, but their sharp hissing serves them well irregardless.

“We could call off the wedding,” she says, ignoring the maid’s scandalized squawk. But even as she says it, she knows they can’t. If they called off the wedding now, her cousin’s honor would come into question once again. At least, by marrying Claudio, she’d have some semblance of peace; if she didn’t, her whole world would implode on her once more, and this time, there would be no faking her death to save herself.

Hero shakes her head. “Father has already promised me away,” she says, disgust and betrayal pulling at the corners of her tired mouth. “To go back on it now…”

Silence falls over the room. The maid, scandalized, had already made her exit, leaving the two cousins in peace even as one’s world falls to pieces while the other watches it happen.

“Hero?” Beatrice whispers, not daring to raise her voice.

Hero hums.

“What will you do?”

Hero looks at her again, eyes resolute with a cold flame. “I shall marry him,” she says, ice creeping over every syllable. “I shall marry him, and give him my hand. But I will be damned if I ever give him my heart again.”

Beatrice closes her eyes and mourns for the loss of her sweet cousin, who’d pinned all her dreams on love and romance. The dreaming girl is gone, murdered on the wedding day that wasn’t, and in her place a sharp, embittered woman stands, ready to defend herself at all costs.

“Alright, Cousin,” she whispers. “Alright.”


End file.
